Healthcare-Associated Infection in a Surgery Service

Abstract

Introduction: Postsurgical infections are present in every worldwide institution with surgical services. These infections are preventable causes of serious adverse events in hospitalized patients.

Objective: To characterize morbimortality due to healthcare-associated infection in patients in a surgical service.

Methods: A descriptive, observational and retrospective study was conducted from 2017 to 2019 in the general surgery service of Hospital Militar “Mario Muñoz Monroy”. The sample was 114 patients who presented postsurgical infection according to the reports from the surgical rooms or the intermediate and intensive care units. Demographic variables were gathered, at the same time with type of infection, risk factors and lethality, all of them grouped in tables for processing and analysis.

Results: The global incidence rate of healthcare-associated infections between 2017 and 2019 was 2.3 %. The female sex accounted for 67.5 % of the total. The predominant age groups were above sixty years old and under eighty years old, accounting for 56.1 %. Superficial surgical site infection predominated in 70.1 % of the patients. The degree of surgical contamination was the main risk factor, accounting for 85.0 % of the cases. Comorbilities were present in 79.8 % of all the patients with infections. Overall lethality of patients with infections was 12.2 %.

Conclusions: The global rates of associated infections are demonstrative of efficient care management. Surgical site infections are the most frequent nosocomial infections, with a predominance of superficial surgical site infection. The main risk factors are comorbilities, age above sixty years, emergency surgery, and smoking.

Keywords: infection; surgery; healthcare; risk factors; mortality.